The Deadly Sin
by sleepynightvale
Summary: Everyone's supposed to be happy, right? The war is over. Everyone's safe. But when a "prank" gone wrong threatens the Weasley twins, this safe world is uprooted once more. This time, by a rouge stranger out for revenge. And why is everyone seeing green?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Takes place in the beautiful AU world of Fox Ears by The Starhorse where Fred is saved in a way that actually makes sense. You don't have to read it (though I highly recommend it)**

_**READ THIS! BASICALLY: Fred is alive but George is still missing an ear. That's pretty much all you really need to know.**_

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><p>"Shut your big, fat trap Fred. I'm working." George Weasley said as he attempted yet again to gather his brain cells and concentrate on the many complex spells it took to even make the theory of their <em>Hear It in Your Head<em> products make sense. He just didn't have the attention span at the moment. Not with Fred blathering away about how not to chop firewood or some such nonsense.

"If I have a fat trap, Georgie, you have a fat arse." Came the lazy reply. George rolled his eyes at the crummy insult and turned back to the parchment on the floor of their room at the Burrow he'd been scribbling on for the past hour.

_The _Unorte _charm should be good for the single ear use, but then we need a charm that lets the user specify which ear._ George scratched his missing ear, an unconscious gesture, and contemplated the possibility for the user to just say "right" or "left". He scribbled on the parchment some more before Fred's incessant whining about the furniture made him shunt the paper to the side and turn his full attention to his twin.

"Bloody damn, Fred, stop complaining!"

"But I'm bored!"

"Count to five,"

"No,"

"But you said you were bored!"

"Not bored enough to count to five!"

George's angry expletives were cut off by a knock at the door. "Come in!" He shouted irritably at the door as if it were the cause of his anger. The door opened and Percy Weasley entered while carrying a poorly wrapped package.

"Whaddya want, Perce?" Fred asked eagerly, scrambling to turn towards his brother from his position on the floor.

"Oh, nothing," Percy said with barely disguised mirth, "I just have a gift for one of you." He placed the tiny package on a desk (George noted that was his) and stepped over the threshold and out the door with a simple "Enjoy!"

Fred and George shared a look before simultaneously nodding: this was obviously a prank.

"Well," Fred asked, "what shall we do with it?" He went over to inspect the small package and made sure to not touch the wrappings.

"We might as well 'fall' for it," George came up behind him and inspected the package over Fred's shoulder.

"Might as well,"

"Could be dangerous,"

"Probably,"

"Who's going to do it?"

They stared at each other for a moment before Fred shrugged.

"Fine. You do it," At George's squawk of outrage, Fred added, "Your desk, your neck," He gestured to the innocent looking package with a sly smirk.

George, martyr-like expression firmly in place, reached out tentatively, smiling in relief when he was able to hold the package without harm.

"You better tell my story right, Fred," George said while examining all sides of the package, "Full of heroic blunders and the like,"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Fred waived him off, "I'll make sure to mention them when you're crying at Mum's feet begging her to sew your other ear back on,"

"You'll be the one having to clean up when I start spewing hairballs," George said in response.

He opened the small box and looked down in disappointment: All he could see was a small, neon green ball. He thought it looked like a muggle gum-ball as he held it up for his twin to see.

"Well," said Fred after a bit of close examining, "this is anticlimactic," George nodded in agreement.

"I guess I'm going to have to eat it. It _is_ a gift after all," He winked at his twin and popped the gumball into his mouth.

After a few moments of chewing, Fred looked his twin up and down to find any obvious changes. "Well, your left foot looks a bit-"

But he was cut off by George's surprised gasp. Fred looked up to find the other redhead and clutching at his neck with scrabbling fingers, as if trying to tear out his throat. He let out a hoarse yell and Fred looked on, eyes furrowed and wondering when the joke started and this horrible chocking ended.

Then Fred realized that this was no joke.

George turned faintly blue, a thick neon green substance that was neither liquid nor solid bubbled up from his throat started to dribble steadily down his chin as he gagged and attempted to draw breath. He was silent.

Fred sprang into action as George stared at him with bulging, panicked eyes.

Not knowing what, exactly, to do in such a situation, Fred ran over to George and looked down his throat. His insides went cold and his breathing grew harsh when he saw saw that the green goop was, in fact, suffocating his twin.

Fred didn't know what to do, so he screamed. He screamed for help, for his mum. He screamed absolute, babbling nonsense while simultaneously going through a list things that would possibly help George in his head. _If only I had a…__oh_!

When they were kids, their mum always made them keep one somewhere in the room at the of the Burrow in case anything went wrong with one of their experiments. She figured that, if she couldn't stop them, she could at least make sure they were safe.

Fred flailed around for a moment trying to think of where the bezoar would be while his yells for _someone_ to come help him.

When George's eyes rolled back into his head, Fred decided that the green goo needed to go in order to get the actual bezoar down his throat. He pursed his lips in attempts to quell the bubbling panic rising in chest, he bent in twin at the waist and pounded him on the back.

The coughs increased and Fred grew desperate.

"Cough it up, Georgie," he begged, "C'mon, just keep coughing," He stuck two fingers into George's throat, scooping the the green substance and distantly hearing itland on the floor with a _spat_.

But it was almost no use. The stuff just kept coming and coming, more and more.

_Finally_ Bill Weasley ran into the room, followed closely by their Mum.

"Fred, what happened? Why'd you-" he trailed off paling at the horrible sight that met his eyes.

George collapsed and now lay almost completely still, save for the slight rolling of his eyes as he blindly searched for a face to give him the tiniest ounce of hope. Fred was furiously working to dislodge the last of the green goop and had a horrible combination of absolute fear and robotic concentration on his face.

"Bezoar…." He muttered, still digging frantically for more of the suffocating liquid. It seemed like it was all gone, but if that was the case, why wasn't George breathing? His eyes had stopped rolling and were now staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Fred… what?" But Fred ignored his mother's stunned question and started performing muggle CPR; rhythmically pumping George's chest. He wished he knew what it was that was lodged in his brother's throat, but since he didn't, it wouldn't be a good idea to introduce it to more magic.

"Bezoar!" he panted, still pumping.

Good thing their father was so interested in muggle healers.

_Finally, _after what seemed like ages, George gave a great shudder and pained little breaths escapeded.

Fred sat back, satisfied slightly that at least George was breathing. But then, suddenly, George's hands once again started scratching and clawing at his throat, as if trying to remove it, letting out pained whimpers and cut off gasps.

Fred cursed out loud while Bill and Molly stood staring at George. "BILL! The bezoar! it's, it's in the second," Fred George's pained cries increased in volume and Fred had to raise his voice, "the second to last drawer in the desk by the door!" All he could do was attempt to calm his tortured twin for those agonizingly long seconds as he writhed and whimpered in pain. George's streaming eyes searched wildly as he continuously scratched at his throat.

Bill, cursing his shocked stillness, rushed over to the desk.

Finally, he brought the little stone to Fred who immediately took it and, with a plea of "Hush Georgie, this will make it better," shoved the bezoar into his mouth.

The result was almost instant. George gave a loud, pain-filled cry, his eyes rolling to show only the whites and finally laid still.

"Fred," Molly asked, voice weak after a moment of stunned stillness, "What happened?"

Fred, quite shell-shocked, scrambled at his twin's throat. Ignoring the numerous scratches and welts George had made on his own skin. He sought out a pulse and he almost fainted with release when he felt the faint fluttering against his fingertips.

He swallowed through the lump in his throat and muttered in a subdued voice, "Percy tried to kill George."

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><p><strong>AN: Thoughts?  
><strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: NEXT CHAPPIE TIME! I feel like an ass for not updating but… I've actually been immersed in a whole other universe of fics and I kinda-sorta forgot about this one? No, I'm kidding, I was procrastinating like the lazy idiot I really am.**

**Without further ado, I present chapter two!**

_**Thank you to **_**chocolateMnMs**** (who's second review actually gave me a good kick and helped me get this chapter up. You're amazing) **_**and to**_**ThornLeaf**_**whose review gave me happy butterflies in my tummy, so thank you **__**very**__** much :D (and it's K+ due to some swears here and there.)**_

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><p>It seemed like forever that they were waiting for the Healers to tell them anything about George's condition. The whole Weasley family had been alerted. Fred was now pacing up and down the hall distractedly as his family tried to coax him to calm down. His mother was not helping his frenzied condition as she had adopted an aura of worry that would put any child on edge.<p>

The only one missing was Percy and Fred thought it just as well. He probably would've killed him on sight anyway.

"Fred, calm down! No news is good news right?" Said Bill, attempting to mollify his younger sibling. He was an older brother; he was supposed to make sure everyone was okay. So how could he have allowed this to happen? The best thing he could do, he figured, was help Fred to see that it wasn't as bad as they all thought it was, even though he found it hard to grasp onto the concept himself.

Fred didn't know whether or not to believe his oldest brother, but all his worries were pushed to the back of his mind at the sight of his third older brother. Striding down the hall to stand beside a crouching Ron, Harry and Hermione, he looked around at the glares of mistrust from his family and his eyes landed finally on the least imposing figure he could see: his father.

"Dad, is he alright?" he asked, his pale parlor making the freckles on his face stand out in stark contrast to his flaming red hair and distinguishing glasses.

Fred, who appeared to be in an anger-induced shock, had seemed to crack at the voiced reminder of his brother's almost-homicide.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he spat, visibly shaking with the overload of suppressed emotion that's been building up for the whole hour of George's unknown condition.

"I-I didn't…."

"WHAT?" Fred suddenly yelled as he reached foreword to grapple at Percy's black wizard robes, "You didn't _what_ Perce? You didn't think?" he said, shaking and strangling his brother, ignoring his family's cry's of him to just _let him go_. "You didn't think I'd know what to do to save him? You didn't think he'd still be _alive_? You tried to _kill_ him! YOU TRIED TO _KILL_ HIM PERCY!" he barred his teeth and resisted the urge to punch his brother's terrified-looking face in, still aware that his sister and mother were present and wouldn't take too kindly to watching the twin beat up his older brother.

"It-it wasn't! I d-didn't know!"

But no matter how much Percy tried to plea his innocence, he found himself shaken and yelled at with incredible ferocity from his shorter, younger brother. The abuse seemed to go on for hours (in which no one felt the need to stop Fred from potentially giving Percy a concussion with all the head banging) before Fred had seemed to run out of steam.

"I swear Perce," He stated as he looked Percy straight in the eye and unconsciously twisting his face into a truly terrifyingly ferocious look of pure loathing, "If he dies," Percy flinched and tried to speak but couldn't seem to get the words out, "I'll fucking kill you." He ignored his mother's squawk of disapproval at his vulgarity and turned to sit on one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, burying his face in his hands and letting out a desperate breath.

"B-but I didn't _know_ it would do _this_." Everyone seemed to accept this because no one made a move to approach him again.

Now all eight of the impatiently waiting Weasleys, plus Harry and Hermione, could only sit in uncomfortable silence with nothing to do but wait for the results of George's condition. Percy could only sink to the ground and rub his temples, avoiding his parents' glances. No one had the strength or the energy to start with the questioning at the moment.

"Why's it taking so long?" Ron asked.

This seemed to be a trigger of some kind, for before anyone could give any sort of reply, the healer (Healer Davis, Fred recalled vaguely), walked briskly towards the agonized family. Eyes snapped up from where they were staring fixatedly at the ground, looking at the Healer with rapt attention.

"What happened?" Fred asked, not liking the desperate tone his voice had taken.

The Healer looked at him with a flash of pity before composing her features once again. "The candy, if you can even call it that, that your brother has been given was highly lethal and usually leads to fatal results." She watched everyone's faces pale considerably before hastily adding, "But in this case, the poison, and yes it _was_ poison, was successfully removed from his system with the application of the bezoar." Davis smiled at the family of slightly relieved, slightly weary Weasleys. "He'll make a full recovery."

Fred looked as though he was going to do a combination of sobbing and dancing. He settled for a shout of "Thank God!" and smiled brilliantly at the rest of his family, who looked very much, the same. Ginny attempted to comfort her mother and quiet her hiccoughing sobs of relief.

The Healer waited for the group to calm down. "But there is some damage. His throat was broken up a bit, you can say, so he won't be sounding quite like himself when he talks for a few months. This type of poison wasn't long lasting, but it was very strong. It was designed to quickly kill in the most painful way. Whoever gave it to him, obviously wanted him dead." She watched with furrowed brows as the group winced horribly. "But he will be fine." Davis nodded and turned towards George's room, she stopped and stood beside it and opened the door, "You may come in now."

Fred jumped up and rushed inside George's hospital room, the rest of the family right behind him.

When he stepped in, Fred thought that, for all purposes, George could've been asleep. He was pale, his freckles stood out sharply against his parlor and his red hair was limp around his face.

"Gods Georgie." Said Fred, walking over to the bed and flopping down on the hard, wooden chair. He grabbed his twin's hand briefly, and then raised his own hands to his twin's face.

He immediately retracted them when he found out how warm George's face was

"He has a fever?" Fred asked Healer Davis as she filed in after the last of the family and shut the door.

"Yes, though it's slight. He should be waking up any minute now actually." She said, checking something off her clipboard.

As if on cue, George stirred only a moment later.

"Georgie!" Fred's exclamation was the loudest out of them all as George looked up, blinking blearily at the people surrounding him. He stared at Fred next to him and wrinkled up his nose in disgust.

"My throat feels like shit." He croaked. Fred's hysterical laugh at that was a mixture of overwhelming relief and amusement as he wrapped his arms tightly around George and buried his face into his neck. If George was joking, everything was going to be okay.

"George! Watch your tongue." Mrs. Weasley admonished, as she rushed over with teary eyes and reached out to hug her son. She didn't say anything though, when she realized that she couldn't fit her arms in anywhere on her son as Fred was holding him firmly in his own grip.

"Fred," George croaked, gasping a bit at Fred's stranglehold, "I like breathing." But this, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. For as soon as the words left his mouth, George felt Fred shudder and a choking noise escaped his throat as his arms tightened even more. George smiled a bit and wrapped his arms around his elder twin. "Stop crying you big git," he said laughing as Fred snorted into his neck, "I'm fine."

When Fred raised his head, his face was dry. But George could see the puffiness in his eyes.

"I wasn't crying you prat. I was laughing at your stupidity."

"And how was I stupid?"

"I'll think of something later." Fred said, slightly defeated because really, _he_ was the stupid one. Not George.

"Healer Davis," Mr. Weasley asked after many teary hugs and laughs, "what exactly _was_ the poison that Percy… gave George."

"It was an _accident_!" Percy said desperately from the corner. He didn't even try to go up and give George a hug; he was hoping that everyone had forgotten he was even there.

It didn't work, of course, but he tried.

Percy was ignored

"Well, the remains of the poison sample you gave us made it hard to figure out exactly what type of poison this was." Healer Davis said while still looking over her clipboard. Fred wished she'd stop; he was getting annoyed that the matter at hand did not have her full attention. "But," she continued, "we did find out in the end." She finally set her clipboard down and looked at each member of the family. "Firstly, I am not surprised that he was given this substance. It looks and acts like a joke item until a certain type of person eats it." She looked at Percy, "The person that gave this to you, did they tell you to try it for yourself?"

"Yes!" Percy said nodding jerkily, "She said, it would just make your teeth turn neon green, she demonstrated it on herself, and then she told me to try it, so I did and it did exactly that! I swear." Percy seemed to take the Healer's words as a means of a scapegoat for most of the blame. Because he really didn't know it was actually meant to kill. "Then she said that I could only have one! She didn't explain why though..."

"Well, yes that's what we thought," Healer Davis said, "because what George here was given, was a special poison called Vengeminus Unicus. It was designed to harm a person with a living twin."

"Wait," Hermione interjected, "why would someone even _have_ that? Isn't it illegal?"

"Didn't you say you read about something like that in one of your weird, advanced DADA books?" Ron asked her.

"Well," Hermione blushed "I _did_ read about it. It was used by death eaters as a sort of scare tactic. It was particularly cruel, only one twin could eat it or it wouldn't work. Kill one off while the other lives... Well anyway, they thought twins were abominations and threats to wizarding society because they split their magic in the womb, making two weaker wizards instead of one stronger one and that they deserved worse deaths than muggle borns…" She trailed off in a small voice as everyone sat in silence.

"Wow," Charlie said, breaking the contemplative silence, "what did you guys do?" he asked accusingly, looking over to Fred and George. They shook their heads and shrugged and Charlie sighed. "You guys are too much."

"Anyway," Healer Davis said, getting back on track, "the point is, Mr. Weasley here," she said gesturing to Percy, "is not at fault." Percy let out a loud, relieved breath at that and smiled as almost everyone muttered 'Sorry's' for accusing him in the first place.

"But," Healer Davis piped up before other conversation could start up, "the real pressing issue is who and why someone gave this substance to Mr. Weasley in the first place. Since this _is_ the Weasley family, you are very well known. And your shop," she nodded at the twins, "is very popular and known for being owned by identical twin brothers. So the person giving it to Mr. Weasley here had either known or hoped that it would be one of you two to take it."

"Blimey," Ginny said staring wide-eyed from Healer Davis to Fred and George then to Percy before finally resting her eyes on Fred, "who would give you two something like that?"

Fred shrugged, "I don't know." He looked at George questioningly, "Why would someone want to kill us?"

George, looking pensive, replied somewhat hesitantly, "I don't know. But I think you mean why would someone want to kill _one_ of us.

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><p><strong>AN: Ooh! A cliffy! Dun, dun, duhhhhn. No really, this cliffy kind of sucks... but it'll get better/more suspenseful! Thanks again to all my reviews/faves/story alerters. You guys make me happy :D **

**Leave me a Review? Please? And tell me if I did a grammer/spelling/anything mistakes and I'll fix them straight away. Thanks again for reading :)**

**P.S.: No idea when the next chapter will be out. It's not that I'm asking for a certain number of reviews until the next chapter comes out, it's just that time sucks and it passes too fast. And I get bored with my own stories a lot. (And people, so it makes some sense.) But I'm determined not to let that happen with this story. I swear!**


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